Where is the mandible bone located in the human body?

The mandible, located inferiorly in the facial skeleton, is the largest and strongest bone of the face. The mandible is a singular bone that has a distinctive horse-shoe shape and is symmetrical on both sides. At birth, there are two mandible bones. Left and right. At two years of age they fuse together to form one (horseshoe).

It forms the lower jaw, holds the teeth and assists with mastication (chewing). It articulates dentally with the upper jaw or the maxilla in the viscerocranium via the teeth when the mouth is closed. It also articulates to the neurocranium via the temporal bone, forming the temporomandibular joint.

The mandible is the only bone in the entire skull that doesn’t articulate with its adjacent skull bones via sutures. When the skull is observed purely as a bony structure, there is nothing anatomically holding the rest of the skull and the mandible together.